


Meet Death

by HyourinmaruIce



Category: Death - Fandom
Genre: Character Death, Death, Death fanfiction, Deathfic, F/M, Meet Death, The Grim Reaper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:37:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyourinmaruIce/pseuds/HyourinmaruIce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meet Death, but don't scorn him. He just does his job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death as he is now

Don’t you know it’s not Halloween Mister?” Asked the little boy who swung one of his legs and stared at him with brown eyes.

He tilted his head to peer more closely at the details of the boy. He was young, perhaps seven or so, with bright eyes and a cheerful smile. He would die of cancer when he was thirty-three. Nothing to do now then.

He couldn’t answer the boy’s question, merely tilt his head and wave his skeletal hand.

“Oh! You’re what Mom calls a mute aren’t you Mister?” The boy scrambled onto the bench, pulling his legs up and into a criss cross pattern that was recognized as popular amongst the little ones, “Do you know sign language?”

He considered the boy a second, feeling the bones of his body warm with mirth before he made the yes sign with his hands.

The boy giggled and clapped with delight, “That’s so cool! I bet you have super awesome hearing and can hear anything within a mile!”

Not true, he could hear any person around the globe. He made the sign for yes with his hands again, not wanting to correct the boy. The boy giggled with delight.

“James!” He heard the mother cry a street away, “James get back here,”

He didn’t have an eyebrow to raise, but he asked the question of the boy with his hands.

“Oh that’s just my mom!” The little boy waved it off as unimportant, before excitement stole over his features once more, “Does that mean you can hear her from that far away?”

He tilted his head as a yes, obviously he could if he was able to mention it to the boy.

The woman, who was the boy’s adopted mother, ran around the corner and smack dab into a man on the street. He would kill her after stalking her for two years. No job there.

The boy watched the scene with him.

The woman’s brown curls strayed into her eyes as she bounced off the man’s chest and fell on her rump. She cursed profusely as she stood up with the help of the proffered hand, apologizing once she was on her feet again. The man just brushed it off with a toothy smile, waving his free hand in an absent manner. She pulled her hand away from his and gently stepped around him, her eyes finding James.

James groaned, “Sorry Mister, I hafta go now,”

He merely nodded, knowing full well that he would never have company for long. It just wasn’t in his nature, he was alone for reasons.

“James! How could you run off like that? I thought I’d taught you better,” The woman scolded the boy, she squatted in front of him and sighed, “And now your pants are dirty! We don’t have time to go home and change either,”

The boy took his moms spit laden fingers and shoved them away from his face, “I’m not that dirty! I was just talking to that man over there!” James pointed.

The woman stood up, her eyes searching the park bench where he sat. He knew she saw nothing, “There’s no one there James,”

James looked back, the boy’s eyes connecting with the black cloak that enshrouded him, “Mom!” The boy’s whine hurt his ears, “The guys right there! He’s in black and the bench is white so you can’t not see him!”

The woman sighed and rolled her eyes, “Alright, there’s a man there. Can we go now James? We’re going to be late!”

The boy grumbled something that he couldn’t refuse a smile at, he felt his bones shake with laughter as the boy took his mom’s hand and was lead off.

The clock nearby struck three.

Finally, he had a job to do. He always conducted mass deaths on site, one never knew what would happen if he tried to direct that many souls halfway across the world.

Death strode towards the library with a quick pace, the bones of his body jingling and bouncing from his exuberance. He loved his job.  
 


	2. James

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a change of plans

Death loved beds, soft and bumpy. They were the perfect things to sit down on when he had to explain to a child why they were leaving.

“Hi there Mister,”

“Hello James,” He signed with his hands, James being the individual letters of the name.

“Still don’t have a voice huh?” The little boy sat up in the bed, his brown hair sticking in every direction. He was older now, perhaps two years or so since Death had last seen the boy, “Why you here?”

The little boy tilted his head and smiled as the skeletal hand reached out and patted his head. Death signed his reasons.

“Oh… so I wasn’t supposed to die then?” The little boy put his hands in his lap, nodding as if he understands what just happened to him.

Death tilts his hooded head.

The boy watches him, unafraid of the what had occurred in the room, “Then why don’t I hurt?” Death waved a hand and the room changed to show the real scene, James looked away, “Oh, thank you for hiding that,”

Death tilted his head again and then stood up, the little boy returned his gaze to the tall man that told him he had been stabbed to death. The man held out a hand.

“So if I take that… I’m dead aren’t I?”

Death shook his head, quickly signing again so the boy would understand. He needed to boy to understand, it was the first friend he’d made in awhile… perhaps friend was the wrong word.

“Oh I see,” The little boy sighed, “I’m already dead then?”

Death tilted his head once more.

The little boy reached out and took his hand.


	3. Bar Fights lead to singing men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death sees his past

They were singing. It was a beautiful song, not one of his favorites, but it was lovely. Drunkards the lot, but drunkards with voices was better than the other option. He watched. There was something scheduled and he didn’t want to miss it.

One began to sing a different song, a sadder song. If he had a heart, perhaps it would tug at the strings that made it, but, alas, he was without one. Instead, it could only remind him of the haunting melody that he hadn’t heard in centuries.

___

“Hello Death,” She said calmly, the hint of a smile curling the edges of her lips, “I was wondering when I’d see you again… the last time I saw you…,” She turned to face her window, the gentle etchings of vines and plants wrapping around the sill, “Was the last time I saw my brother,”

He tilted his head, only paying attention to the bed long enough to make sure its important occupant was close to giving his last breathe, before turning to the woman once more.

“And now it is the last time I will see my husband. I know you can’t talk,” She whispered as she leaned against the sill with her elbows supporting her, “But you always seem willing to listen,” She began to sing.

___

He didn’t wait for the bar fight to break out; he could deal with it without being present, as was usually the case. Torture wasn’t something he enjoyed.


	4. Victoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Death was in Victorian times

Death wasn’t one to make personal calls, when singular souls left their bodies he was at his statue. He would stare out and just enjoy the sky as people kept dying, he kept doing his job. Today was different. Today was royalty. It wasn’t every day that he got to gloat as someone who was considered important was reduced to nothing.

“Back again are we?” He heard in the corner of the room, the woman who came with each royal death.

He tilted his head, watching the woman gasping for breath in the bed before him.

“Do you enjoy Royal death or is it just you doing your job?” She whispered, and he turned to look at her. She was huddled in a corner, and she was so very young. He doubted she’d ever seen someone die before, but her face was haunted by more than the woman in the bed.

He waved a hand, a half shrug sort of motion that was meant to be a sign of his job. 

She attempted to giggle, but the sound came out as more of a strangled gasp. He tilted his head and she shook hers, “I’m alright… It’s not a good idea to attempt a laugh when one is struggling to breath already,”

Ignoring the gasping woman in the bed, he stepped past the bed only to feel the tug a royal death might bring. Miss the death, or study the little one before him… it wasn’t even a question. He could see death almost every day; life was something he rarely experienced.

He continued past and crouched before the little one, his bones rattling in sorrow for what he was missing. He tilted his head almost sideways, studying the girl that was sniffling and wiping at her face with the chemise she wore.

“I told you I’m fine, and I have nothing else to wear so don’t make fun of me alright,” She looked at him with blue eyes, blown wide with curiosity, “I saw you when I was six you know,”

He nodded once, understanding and accepting.

“I won’t remember this when I’m older will I?” She whispered, turning her eyes away from him and towards the corpse that he had already vacated the spirit of.

He tilted his head once, hoping that was enough of an answer.

“You can’t speak huh?” She huffed a little, a wet chuckle escaping her, “Aren’t you the grim reaper or something? How come you can’t speak?”

He shrugged, that elicited another giggle from the little girl. She quieted down quickly enough, “Will you stay with me until morning?”

Without any more prompting, he sat down by the little girl and ignored the weight of her head upon his shoulder, “Thank you,”


	5. Her Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Death was in Victorian times, continued

She was twelve when he saw her the next time, more and more death piling up around her. This was the third royal death he was going to skip to watch the living. She didn’t know how special she was.

“It’s so odd to think that I can see you, my brother and I didn’t get along but it’s still strange to see his death coming after him,” Her voice was soft, the lilting accent of the British rounding out the vowels of her words. 

He tilted his head, she laughed in return.

“Is that how you’ll always respond? I don’t understand how I can understand your head tilts but I always do,” It was the giggle afterward that warned him of her lucid state. 

He waved a hand and tilted his head, both questioning in intent.

“Ah yes, see that was a question wasn’t it?” She was sitting in a chair, the dying lay in his bed and the bottles lay scattered around the three of them.

He stood straight.

“Oh, my, it was!” She giggled, “I bet you are waiting for me to answer your little question… but what if I refuse? Will you kill me too?”

He did nothing but watch as she bent over to pick up a bottle, it appeared to have words written on the side, and tilted it back to pour its contents in her mouth. She wiped away the excess that had dribbled down and glared at him.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” She whispered, her eyes boring into the dark of his hood, “Why do you wear a hood? Why only royal deaths? You’re the only one whose ever listened to me you know,”

He did nothing.

“You’re listening right now even,” A sigh came from her and she leaned back in the chair, she tilted her head over the back rest and stared at the high ceiling, “Even now you listen as a living mortal prattles on,”

He did nothing.

Another laugh burst from her, she tilted the bottle into her mouth and chugged its contents. He stepped forward, just enough to be the slightest bit closer but not enough for her to truly notice unless she paid attention. She dropped the bottle to the floor with a clang.

Her head popped up and her eyes examined him once more, “You don’t want me to die do you?”

He tilted his head.

She grunted and let her head flop back once more, “What do the stars look like tonight, Death?”

He took another step forward.

“Would they care if I died?” Her voice pitched high as she spoke.

Another step.

“Would the stars mourn my loss or accept me as one of their own?” She sung the words as if they were part of a song she once knew.

Another step had his robe brushing the bare skin of her shins.

“What happens to us when we die?” She breathed out sharply as she lifted her head and shot a hand forward to drop his hood. As soon as she saw what was beneath, her hand fell to her side.

He flinched.

“Bones huh?” She smiled softly at him, “Do you know?”

He tilted his head and gently reached up with one of his hands, the other staying firmly at his side, to flip the hood up. She stopped him with a hand encircling his carpus.

“Are you ashamed?” She whispered as she tightened her grip, “Do you dislike being Death?”

Of course he did, but he couldn’t tell her that. He had no words to use, so instead he let his head fall forward so his vision rested on her chin.

Another sharp breathe escaped her, “I see,”

She let go of his hand but he merely let it flop back to his side, she had already seen him.

Scrutinizing him a moment longer, she pushed herself to one side of the chair and giggled, “Come on and sit by me then, might as well enjoy each other’s presence while we can,”

He sat.


End file.
